David Pawson - Unlocking the Bible

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

I The Old Testament

The Maker’s Instructions

1. Overview of the Old Testament

2. Genesis

3. Exodus

4. Leviticus

5. Numbers

6. Deutronomy

A Land and A Kingdom

7. Joshua

8. Judges and Ruth

9. 1 and 2 Samuel

10. 1 and 2 Kings

Poems of Worship and Wisdom

11. Introduction to Hebrew poetry

12. Psalms

13. Song of Songs

14. Proverbs

15. Ecclesiastes

16. Job

Decline and Fall of an Empire

17. Introduction to prophecy

18. Jonah

19. Joel

20. Amos and Hosea

21. Isaiah

22. Micah

23. Nahum

24. Zephaniah

25. Habakkuk

26. Jeremiah and Lamentations

27. Obadiah

The Struggle to Survive

28. Ezekiel

29. Daniel

30. Esther

31. Ezra and Nehemiah

32. 1 and 2 Chronicles

33. Haggai

34. Zechariah

35. Malachi

II The New Testament

The Hinge of History

36. The Gospels

37. Mark

38. Matthew

39. Luke and Acts

40. Luke

41. Acts

42. John

The Thirteenth Apostle

43. Paul and his letters

44. 1 and 2 Thessalonians

45. 1 and 2 Corinthians

46. Galatians

47. Romans

48. Colossians

49. Ephesians

50. Philippians

51. Philemon

52. 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus

Through Suffering to Glory

53. Hebrews

54. James

55. 1 and 2 Peter

56. Jude

57. 1, 2 and 3 John

58. Revelation

59. The Millennium

About the Publisher

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HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in separate volumes in Great Britain in 1999–2001 by HarperCollinsPublishers

The edition published in Great Britain in 2003 by HarperCollinsPublishers

David Pawson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780007166664

Unlocking the Bible. Copyright © David Pawson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007378920

Version: 2018-12-06

I suppose this all started in Arabia, in 1957. I was then a chaplain in the Royal Air Force, looking after the spiritual welfare of all those who were not C.E. (Church of England) or R.C. (Roman Catholic) but O.D. (other denominations – Methodist to Salvationist, Buddhist to atheist). I was responsible for a string of stations from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf. In most there was not even a congregation to call a ‘church’, never mind a building.

In civilian life I had been a Methodist minister working anywhere from the Shetland Islands to the Thames Valley. In that denomination it was only necessary to prepare a few sermons each quarter, which were hawked around a ‘circuit’ of chapels. Mine had mostly been of the ‘text’ type (talking about a single verse) or the ‘topic’ type (talking about a single subject with many verses from all over the Bible). In both I was as guilty as any of taking texts out of context before I realized that chapter and verse numbers were neither inspired nor intended by God and had done immense damage to Scripture, not least by changing the meaning of ‘text’ from a whole book to a single sentence. The Bible had become a compendium of ‘proof-texts’, picked out at will and used to support almost anything a preacher wanted to say.

With a pocketful of sermons based on this questionable technique, I found myself in uniform, facing very different congregations – all male instead of the lifeboat-style gatherings I had been used to: women and children first. My meagre stock of messages soon ran out. Some of them had gone down like a lead balloon, especially in compulsory parade services in England before I was posted overseas.

So here I was in Aden, virtually starting a church from scratch, from the Permanent Staff and temporary National Servicemen of Her Majesty’s youngest armed service. How could I get these men interested in the Christian faith and then committed to it?

Something (I would now say: Someone) prompted me to announce that I would give a series of talks over a few months, which would take us right through the Bible (‘from Generation to Revolution’!).

It was to prove a voyage of discovery for all of us. The Bible became a new book when seen as a whole. To use a well-worn cliché, we had failed to see the wood for the trees. Now God’s plan and purpose were unfolding in a fresh way. The men were getting something big enough to sink their teeth into. The thought of being part of a cosmic rescue was a powerful motivation. The Bible story was seen as both real and relevant.

Of course, my ‘overview’ was at that time quite simple, even naive. I felt like that American tourist who ‘did’ the British Museum in 20 minutes – and could have done it in 10 if he’d had his running shoes! We raced through the centuries, giving some books of the Bible little more than a passing glance.

But the results surpassed my expectations and set the course for the rest of my life and ministry. I had become a ‘Bible teacher’, albeit in embryo. My ambition to share the excitement of knowing the whole Bible became a passion.

When I returned to ‘normal’ church life, I resolved to take my congregation through the whole Bible in a decade (if they put up with me that long). This involved tackling about one ‘chapter’ at every service. This took a lot of time, both in preparation (an hour in the study for every 10 minutes in the pulpit) and delivery (45–50 minutes). The ratio was similar to that of cooking and eating a meal.

The effect of this systematic ‘exposition’ of Scripture confirmed its rightness. A real hunger for God’s Word was revealed. People began to come from far and wide, ‘to recharge their batteries’ as some explained. Soon this traffic was reversed. Tape recordings, first prepared for the sick and housebound, now began to go far and wide, ultimately in hundreds of thousands to 120 countries. No one was more surprised than I.

Leaving Gold Hill in Buckinghamshire for Guildford in Surrey, I found myself sharing in the design and building of the Millmead Centre, which contained an ideal auditorium for continuing this teaching ministry. When it was opened, we decided to associate it with the whole Bible by reading it aloud right through without stopping. It took us 84 hours, from Sunday evening until Thursday morning, each person reading for 15 minutes before passing the Bible on to someone else. We used the ‘Living’ version, the easiest both to read and to listen to, with the heart as well as the mind.